1946 Raleighs

On May 8, 11:00*pm, "Bertrand"
wrote:
Now, to get firmly on topic: *I certainly favor many kinds of taxation,

Wasn't the topic "1946 Raleighs"?

Well, once upon a time it was. Maybe I should have said I was getting
one step closer to being on topic!

So: Wasn't the video of prints hand-drawn on drafting boards quaint?
You'd think that if they could have done their designs in computer
solid modeling, they'd be able to sell frames for about $10!

- Frank Krygowski

Frank Krygowski wrote:
On May 8, 11:00 pm, "Bertrand"
wrote:
Now, to get firmly on topic: I certainly favor many kinds of taxation,
Wasn't the topic "1946 Raleighs"?

Well, once upon a time it was. Maybe I should have said I was getting
one step closer to being on topic!

So: Wasn't the video of prints hand-drawn on drafting boards quaint?
You'd think that if they could have done their designs in computer
solid modeling, they'd be able to sell frames for about $10!

- Frank Krygowski

The whole bike, complete and assembled, retailed for about
16 pounds. They sold well, in huge numbers, profitably. So
much so that Britain slapped an export tax on bicycles in 1956.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On May 7, 9:26*pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
On May 7, 9:26*am, Peter Cole wrote:

On 5/6/2012 9:07 PM, Jay Beattie wrote:

We can't use the post-war experience as a modern guide. *The post-war
economy boomed because US industry had a corner on the market -- every
market, from food to cars. Everyone bought our crap. *Now everyone
buys China's crap.

-- Jay Beattie.

I'm afraid the data doesn't support your assertions. The data is a bit
scanty during the war years and the immediate aftermath, but by 1960, US
exports were at about the same levels as the decades preceding the war.
This should be put into perspective in that 1960 US trade amounted to
~3% of GDP. Hardly a big factor. The US GDP did grow by a factor of 2.5
from 1940 to 1960.

The US had an 18% share of world exports in the early '50s -- and I've
seen quotes as high as 30%, although I believe those are wrong.

Me, too. Then why mention them?

*It is
now running 8% -- and a huge trade deficit. Post war, there was high
domestic and foreign demand for US goods, and public debt was mostly
for the cost of war, one finished and one underway.

Domestic demand, yes, foreign, no -- an important point. A good
portion of our recent increase in public debt was from our 2 current
wars and covering private losses in the finance sector.

*Social Security
was running a surplus, and there was no Medicare/Medicaid/AFDC/SCHIP
or other entitlement programs. *We had debt, but it was not
intractable.

The public debt was far higher post WWII than it is now. The
tractability is only obvious in hindsight. I'm sure there were at
least as many deficit hawks then.

*The world was a very different place in the late 40's
and '50s. *Moreover, whether the New Deal would have worked without
the war is speculative.

Then why speculate? I wasn't. The world is certainly different, the
meaningful task is explaining those differences in economic terms.

Anyway, we can't look back 60 years to solve current problems. The
world is too different.

It is and it isn't. Importantly the current recession is the largest
since the great depression and many of the causal factors remain the
same. You haven't rationalized your pessimism.


"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization" -- Oliver Wendell Holmes

We seem to be forgetting that.

OWH also said this in Buck v. Bell in 1927 (involving the right of the
state of Virginia to sterilize a “feeble-minded white woman“ against
her will):

We seem to be forgetting that, too. *All sorts of wags say all sorts
of things, many of them quotable, but totally irrelevant to an actual,
modern problem.

-- Jay Beattie.

Things have changed more in medicine than economics. Given the extent
of the social safety net in the 20's and the misunderstanding of
genetics, eugenics had broad support and was arguably less inhumane
then than now. Forced sterilization was widely accepted at the time,
it was not a fringe view.

The point stands that taxes are necessary for civilization. Reasonable
people may differ on what comprises fiscally effective taxation, but
that is really a matter of economics, not morality. Social welfare is
both pragmatic and moral in dimension, and it is almost entirely
wildly popular -- try taking social security or medicare away, the
only politically tolerable cuts come in aid to the poor, and those are
always moral judgments disguised as economics. Despite the dog whistle
rhetoric, in reality they have been pared to the bone already. The
overall tax burden is only slightly progressive despite claims to the
contrary. Inequality is high and rising. I think that current
priorities are unfortunate, both economically and morally, but I think
the economic argument alone is enough to justify significant change.
Deferring or eliminating investment is not frugality.

John B. wrote:

[snipped cartloads of ludicrously endarkened poppycock]

I can give
you instance after instance of people that became extremely wealthy
doing honorable work - think Microsoft,

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha gasp

Apple,

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahaha cough, cough, cough

Hathaway,

Hahahaha help help help I can't take it!

just for starters.

With starters like that, it won't take long to finish me off.

Chalo

On 5/9/2012 12:03 AM, AMuzi wrote:
Frank Krygowski wrote:
On May 8, 11:00 pm, "Bertrand"
wrote:
Now, to get firmly on topic: I certainly favor many kinds of taxation,
Wasn't the topic "1946 Raleighs"?

Well, once upon a time it was. Maybe I should have said I was getting
one step closer to being on topic!

So: Wasn't the video of prints hand-drawn on drafting boards quaint?
You'd think that if they could have done their designs in computer
solid modeling, they'd be able to sell frames for about $10!

- Frank Krygowski

The whole bike, complete and assembled, retailed for about 16 pounds.
They sold well, in huge numbers, profitably. So much so that Britain
slapped an export tax on bicycles in 1956.


I think that was around $750 in 2012 dollars.

On 5/8/2012 11:14 PM, Çhâlõ Çólîñã wrote:
John B. wrote:

[snipped cartloads of ludicrously endarkened poppycock]

I can give
you instance after instance of people that became extremely wealthy
doing honorable work - think Microsoft,

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahagasp

Apple,

Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahacough, cough, cough

Hathaway,

Hahahaha help help help I can't take it!

just for starters.

With starters like that, it won't take long to finish me off.

Chalo

John B. learned these things while attending collage (sic).

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731°N, 83.985007°W
Post Free or Die!

"Tom $herman (-_-)" " wrote:

Thatcher is a criminal who should be breaking rocks in a labor camp, and
one of the primary persons responsible for destroying British industry
and degrading quality of life of those unconnected to the City (i.e.
Corporation of the Crown).


I live in the UK and was an adult when Thatcher was in power. I hated her
then and still do, but this is so wrong as to be laughable

On 09/05/12 14:23, Tom $herman (-_-) wrote:

If I could name the true richest 20 persons in the world, I would be
dead within a couple of days.

No, you wouldn't. No one takes you seriously.

--
JS.

John B. writes:

On Tue, 08 May 2012 20:49:58 -0400, Radey Shouman
wrote:

John B. writes:

On Tue, 08 May 2012 00:58:38 -0500, "Tom $herman (-_-)"
" wrote:

On 5/7/2012 7:51 PM, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 7 May 2012 12:39:50 -0700 (PDT), Chalo
wrote:

John B. wrote:

So Government X defaults on its bonds? And life goes on as usual?
I think you need a better grounding in economics 101.

Iceland went the way of default as you describe. Whether things
continued "as usual" is up to your definition of usual. But to an
objective and remote examination, things seem to be running more
smoothly there than in Greece, where they've gone to extremes not to
default on their sovereign debt.

I believe that the difference was that the Icelandics (is that a
word?) recognized their problem and moved to correct them while Greece
seems to be doing exactly the opposite.

Yes, Greece is making the working people suffer, while looking out for
the interests of the criminal bankers.

I'll take this opportunity to observe that investments are presumed to
earn interest because of the risk of loss of the principal. Rich fux
these days want the people to cover their risks and make good on their
losses, while the rich fux take all the winnings. We can already see
the direction this is heading.

Given that investments are normally of one of two basic forms, one,
one becomes a partner in a business and participates in the profit
earned (stocks) or two, one loans an entity money (bonds) your first
assertion is faulty. Interest is paid primarily as a fee for using
someone else's money. Of course, if there is a chance that the money
won't be repaid then the cost of money goes up as there has to be some
compensation for the risk taken.

As for "Rich Fux", are you telling me that if you loan someone 10
bucks you don't want it paid back? Or if you have partners in your
business you don't have to divvy up the profits with them?

(You do realize, I hope, that to some people you, the business owner,
are a "Rich Fux", and an exploiter too for that matter, as your income
is derived from selling things to people at a higher price then you
acquired it for.)

The Rich-Filth bankers are allowed to create money at no cost, then they
loan it to governments at interest. This is simple usury, as they
provide no added value to anyone. Defaulting on the loans to them would
be the same as stopping a leech from sucking your blood - the bankers
have as moral right to the money as the leech has to your blood.


How do these evil bankers create money? I'm real interested in that
point.

Bankers, evil or good, create money by lending out more than they take
in deposits. If you deposit a dollar in your bank, and the bank loans
two dollars with that dollar as reserve, then a dollar has been created.
Most of the two dollars loaned will probably be deposited shortly, and
they chain continues. With the exception of coins all US dollars are
created in exactly this way, by lending.


Interesting. You deposit a green dollar bill and the bank hands out
two dollar bills. Rather imaginative method of doubling your money
albeit a bit difficult to do.

Doubling is actually very conservative, 10:1 is more like it, and in
recent years 50:1 has not been unusual. That is how they taught it to
me when I took macro economics; it's not some kind of conspiracy theory.

If everyone managed to pay off their debts simultaneously there would be
no money whatsoever.

All of these money-creating loans are made, barring banking
incompetence, at a positive real rate of interest. This means that the
sum of real wealth in the economy has to increase exponentially (as a
percentage of the total). If it does not then in short order the few
bankers who are not broke own everything.

Money creating loans? I loan you 10 dollars and suddenly I have 20
dollars in my pocket?

Loans create money. Of course it's not in your pocket, but it is
on your books as an asset, a debt owed to you by whoever took the loan.

Back in the day each bank issued its own "bank notes", which were only
as good as the bank itself. In the US today we have federal reserve
notes, bank notes issued by the federal reserve bank, which is an odd
sort of public/private organization.

"Tom $herman (-_-)" " writes:

On 5/8/2012 6:31 AM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 08 May 2012 00:52:39 -0500, "Tom $herman (-_-)"
" wrote:

On 5/7/2012 6:44 AM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 06 May 2012 13:36:13 -0500, "Tom $herman (-_-)"
" wrote:

On 5/5/2012 3:09 PM, A. Muzi wrote:
As Margaret Thatcher pithily noted, socialism works until you run out of
other people's money. Europe's party is over.

Europe is at least honest in its profligacy. It's not better here, we
merely have The Big Lie and a faster printing press. The foreseeable end
will be a debacle in both cases when the music stops.

Sorry, but you are unwittingly promoting the Big Lie.

There is no moral obligation to repay "odious debts", which includes all
the debt based money that governments allowed central banks to create
for free and then loaned to the governments at interest (i.e. usury on
the working class taxpayer). So the simple solution is to declare these
debts void and go back to government issued debt free money. The only
losers would be the hereditary members of the criminal international
banking cabal.


Lets see, what money are you talking about? The money that came from
the purchase of government bonds? Certainly that is the usual manner
that governments raise cash.

So Government X defaults on its bonds? And life goes on as usual?
I think you need a better grounding in economics 101.

You are making the mistake of confusing paper wealth with real wealth.

Hardly. You can count your wealth in gold, silver or those big stone
wheels that some south Sea Islanders use for money. Paper is just an
easy way to move it around. would you rather tote a bushel of beets
down to Walmart the next time you want to buy a shirt?

Wrong. Would farms growing food cease to exist if the government
defaulted on debt? Would minerals in the ground disappear? Would
factories and infrastructure vanish? Would the accumulated technical
knowledge of the society be lost?

The answer to all the above is of course not. Money is but a
construct to represent real wealth.

Money does not represent wealth, it is a construct allowing people to
trade in the debts and obligations of anonymous third parties. It is an
enormously powerful invention, and modern factories and infrastructure
could not possibly operate without it. How would a factory operate if
it had to give each worker something he actually needed? How would it
buy spares and supplies? How would it accept payment for its products?

Operating modern factories and infrastructure without money would be
about as hard as operating them without writing or arithmetic.

Of course, even after a sovereign default some more or less legitimate
money is reestablished, but it does take time, and does involve real
losses. I once shared an apartment with a Bolivian who gave me a
100,000 boliviano note, worth almost exactly as much as any other
picturesquely printed paper rectangle.